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January 14, 2005/Tevet 4 5765, Vol. 57, No. 20
Test of wealth easy to fail
Torah study
MICHAEL WASSERMAN
Parsha Bo, Exodus 10:1-13:16
In Parsha Bo, the story of the Exodus from Egypt reaches its culmination. Amid all the grand events, there is one small detail in the story that draws a puzzling comment in the Talmud.
Before the Israelites leave Egypt, God causes their Egyptian neighbors to feel sympathy for them, and lend them gold and silver vessels and clothing. Rav Ami, in Tractate Brakhot, comments that God forced the Israelites, against their will, to accept those goods.
A later text, the Beit Sh'muel Aharon, tries to make sense of Rav Ami's comment. Why would God have to force the Israelites to accept their neighbors' wealth? Wouldn't they be glad to have it, after all their years of deprivation?
The text explains that, just as hardship can be a test of character, wealth is too. The Israelites had passed the test of hardship. Slavery had not defeated them. They were emerging from Egypt with their integrity intact. But they feared that the test of wealth might be a harder one for them to pass. For that reason, God had to force them to accept it.
The point may be a little overstated. Given the choice, few of us would trade affluence for poverty. If we are fortunate enough to pick our test, who wouldn't pick the test of wealth? But it is also true that the Israelites' fears were not entirely misplaced. In a crucial way, the test of wealth is an easier test to fail - because, in our comfort, we can so easily forget that we are being tested.
Yet we are tested. The way in which we use our wealth tells the world what kind of people we are. We are tested as individuals, and we are tested as a nation.
As Americans, we see ourselves as a generous people. Yet, per capita, we send less aid overseas to needy nations than any other developed country. Even when we include private giving in the total, we are still at the bottom of the list. (See Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times, Jan. 5.) Our outpouring of support for the tsunami victims in Southeast Asia, as important as it is, does not change the underlying reality. And all the more so, when the initial burst of generosity inspired by the disaster has passed, the tendency will be to fall back to the status quo. If wealth is a test of character, then our nation still has a way to go in meeting the challenge.
So perhaps Rav Ami's comment in the Talmud is not as strange as it seems. Maybe, as the Beit Shmuel Aharon suggests, it reminds us of a test that is so easy to fail, because it is so easy to ignore. May Parsha Bo help to keep us aware, as individuals and as a nation, of the work that we have yet to do in making our wealth count.
Michael Wasserman is co-rabbi of The New Shul in Scottsdale and a faculty member at the Jess Schwartz Jewish Community High School.
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